Halloween decoration storage: the awkward-shape problem

Inflatables: dry, then fold, then bag

An inflatable that goes into a tote damp comes out eleven months later with mildew on it, and mildew on coated polyester is effectively permanent. This is the single most common way a good inflatable is lost.

1. Run the blower for twenty minutes after the last night. With the figure inflated and no rain, moving air dries the inside as well as the outside. Nothing else does.
2. Wipe down the outside and let it stand. Then let it stand deflated indoors for a day. Seams hold water long after the fabric feels dry.
3. Fold along the same lines each year. Repeated folding at different points is what cracks the coating.
4. Bag the blower and stakes separately. Stakes puncture fabric in transit, and this is exactly how a good inflatable acquires a leak in storage.
5. Store in a rigid tote, not a bag. Rodents chew polyester, and a soft bag on a garage floor is an invitation.

Props and animatronics

Animated props are the most fragile things in a Halloween collection: motors, linkages and thin plastic, none of it built for compression. Three rules:

• Batteries out, always. Eleven months is long enough for a cell to leak, and leaked electrolyte inside a motor housing ends the prop.
• Keep the original box if it has structure. This is the one category where the manufacturer's packaging is often genuinely better than anything you would buy, because it was molded to the shape.
• Top of the stack, never the bottom. Same rule as wreaths, same reason.

Projectors and electronics

Projectors are precision optics that live outside for a month. When they come in, give the lens a wipe with a dry microfiber cloth before storing, keep the unit in a rigid box, and store it indoors rather than in an unheated garage — large temperature swings are hard on optics and on the electronics behind them.

Keep the projector, its power supply, its remote, its stake and its USB stick in the same box. A projector with a missing power supply is a paperweight, and the power supply is the thing that always ends up in a different tote.

Halloween lights and cords

Halloween light strands tangle exactly like Christmas ones and the fix is identical: wind onto reels as they come down. If you already own reels for Christmas, buy a second set rather than sharing — a reel with an orange strand and a warm white strand wound onto it is a reel nobody will use.

Full method in how to store lights without a tangle.

Halloween needs its own zone

The temptation is to mix Halloween into general seasonal storage, and it does not work. The two seasons are eight weeks apart, and in late October you do not want to move six Christmas totes to reach the pumpkins.

Store the Halloween stack in front of, or beside, the Christmas stack rather than behind it. Halloween comes out first every year, and the order on the shelf should reflect that. The general principle is in the storage system.

The first week of November

There is a real advantage to taking Halloween down promptly, beyond the neighbors: it is the only window when the weather is still mild enough to dry an inflatable properly and you have not yet started on Christmas. A collection packed down on November 2nd is in far better condition next year than one that comes down on a wet weekend in late November.